Spirituality

I grew up in a devout Anglican family. We went to church every Sunday, even on holidays. We went to saints days, high and holy days etc. Christmas was a 2 service day! You get the picture. I also grew up in a very conservative household. Sex was totally for marriage only and a girl would lose her honour if she slept with anyone before marriage and no one would want to marry her.

We were also very high church- bells and smells. More catholic than Rome etc. Truth be told I loved the theatre. I found an old Punch cartoon once that had a bishop talking to a man in a suit saying 'Well I wanted to go into the theatre and my father wanted me to go into insurance, so we compromised'. I also loved the music. This started off as hymns as a child the onto motets, anthems and finally mass settings. To top it off, I was a choral scholar at the university college we were at. On Sunday's, I went with W to a very high church parish, where I too sang in their choir. I remember 2 weeks after we were married farewelling this church and absolutely bawling. Then cut to our time in Adelaide... W had finished in the dodgy parish and said that we were just going to go to the local parish. So we walked around there our first Sunday to be greeted with their family service in the round. It was totally different to anything I had ever experienced. But I loved it. And I loved the people there. I especially got along with A & A, the rector and the woman he was married to! Ms A had spunk! She was a true feminist. Whilst I had been brought up to shun any forms of inclusive language or contemporary music or feminist or eco-spirituality, A introduced me to it. A really taught me how to lead the intercessions. We would sing responses. She would include poems by Leunig as well as ancient prayers of the church.

Just after I announced we were pregnant with J, A confided in me that she too was pregnant and due 2 weeks before me. A had chronic medical problems and was often in pain, but she went through pregnancy without complaining. She even expressed breastmilk for 11 months for Miss R. Because of A's medical conditions, she would sometimes go weeks without coming to church. When she was well A, A and I would get together and practice psalms for church or reflections to be sung after sermons. We organised an ad hoc singing group and A & A wrote and arranged a lot of material for it. The Easter after R&J were born was magnificent! The music was out of this world, but totally different to my college days. Likewise Christmas where we sang a gorgeous arrangement of Ms A 'How far is it to Bethlehem' and also Rev A's arrangement of "The Huron Carol'. I led the intercessions at midnight mass, A in the morning. It was an amazing time. I felt so close to God. Then in March, when R was 13.5 months old, we got the phone call that Ms A was vomiting and a meeting was cancelled. We wished her well. The following day at lunchtime we received the call to say that A had actually died. This was the Tuesday before Palm Sunday. She had vomited all night and in the morning was taken by ambulance to hospital, but had a cardiac arrest and they were unable to revive her. later it showed she had toxemia. I was just numb for weeks. A's funeral was the most amazing service I have ever been to. We got a singing group together and sang a number of Rev A's arrangements, some of A's compositions and hymns and psalms. There was the most amazing sermon and 4 eulogies. And Rev A and R sat in the front pew. And walked out after her coffin and we all bawled our eyes out.

W took over in the services in the parish and was amazing in his pastoral care. It was an amazing growth time for the parish and for all of our spiritualities (sp?). Easter was pretty low key. I got the singing group together and we sang some Taizé. A came back to work after a few months. The following November we announced our move up here. Christmas was particularly hard. We couldn't sing Ms A's arrangements as it was too hard, but I managed to almost get through a rewritten version of her intercessions at midnight mass, singing the responses (The response to “Holy star, burning bright’ is ‘Holy Child, be born in us tonight’.) These finished:

'Holy child of the ages we remember and give thanks for all those we love who have gone before us guiding and inspiring our lives. Holy child, rise within us, like a star and make us restless ‘till we journey forth to seek our rest in you.

Holy Star, burning bright
Holy Child, be born in us tonight.

Love is born
With a dark and troubled face
When hope is dead
And in the most unlikely place
Love is born:
Love is always born.

There was not a dry eye in the house. A admitted later he didn't know how he carried on with the service. I went back to my pew and wept. It was not only weeping for Ms A, but also for having to leave this community.

The whole experience in the parish up here was awful. My musical suggestions were shunned, hymns and words to familiar tunes were shunned as they sought 'too much social justice'. How one can show too much social justice is beyond me. I think most people wanted to be the Liberal party at prayer and for me to mention refugees or the homeless was an insult and we didn't need reminding.

To top it off, when W was in hospital and I asked the bishop why he allowed all these lies about us to abound and did nothing to repudiate them even though he knew they were lies, I received an email saying it was 'inappropriate for him to give me pastoral care'. From that moment on I said I was not going to be part of the Anglican Church, the church of my heritage.

So for over 14 months (except for the childrens' Christmas service at another Anglican Church last year which I hated every moment of) I have not been to church. Easter last year felt particularly strange. I was so busy at work at Christmas to notice. But I did miss singing the descants to all the carols. Singing along in the car is not the same!

Someone (D) said to me yesterday that I should think of converting to Catholicism. I laughed it off at the time, but D has planted a seed that I suspect is germinating. So this is also something I will look into, perhaps after the thesis is finished! So T- get yourself up from the floor! LOL!